Chapter 1

There was a man. He had a yellow helmet on. A torch in the helmet. I’d always wanted one of those. He had a moustache. Who had a moustache these days?

I didn’t understand.

“Kenny,” I said.

“Kenny?” the man asked. “Is that your brother?”

“Kenny’s fine.”

Other men were there. Not just men. There was a woman. They all had the helmets with the torches, and scratchy clothes. They were doing things to me.

“On three,” someone said. “One, two …” And then rotten pain, the worst for ages. They’d lifted me into something.

They wrapped me up in tin foil.

“You’re the world’s biggest turkey,” someone said.

“Where’s Kenny?” I asked.

“He’s waiting for you.”

“No, lad! Hospital. Hypothermia. But he’s fine. Watching the telly, I expect.”

All the time the people were working, doing things. Straps. Grunting.

Someone said, “Let’s get him out of here while we still bloody can.”

I turned my head and saw Tina still lying on the rock.

“My dog,” I said.

“I’m sorry, son,” the man said.

“Don’t leave her.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.”

“Will you bury her? Somewhere nice …”

“Course I will.”

“Don’t tell Kenny,” I said.

They were lifting me. The men and the woman. Carrying me. I strained back my head to see. The man picked up Tina, our dog, who had given up the last of her warmth to me.

It always feels like cheating in a story when people black out and wake up later. Well, I didn’t black out. I remember being carried back along the gorge, the men and the woman sometimes splashing in the water, sometimes climbing over the rocks. And then we went up, the rescue people grunting as they tried to keep the stretcher level. And then it became easier, and then we were at the road, and an ambulance was waiting with its light flashing blue. All the time I cried for Tina, with sadness, and for Kenny, with relief. And I cried a bit because my fucking leg hurt so much.

It took ages to get to the hospital, the ambulance going along the narrow roads. But I didn’t mind. I was warm. Then we got there, and there was a big fuss when I got in. The lights of the hospital were too bright. Nurses checking things, doctors checking things. It was only then that I realised the man who’d picked up Tina wasn’t there. I wanted to thank him, and the others. Maybe I had, I couldn’t remember.

The first thing they did was to wash my face and put a bandage on my head. I’d forgotten that I’d bashed it when I fell. Then they wheeled me in to have my leg X‑rayed. A doctor told me they couldn’t put a cast on it till the next day, as they had to wait for the swelling to go down. They gave me tablets that made the pain go away. Other things happened. Then my dad was there, and Jenny. It was still the night time.

“Sorry, Dad,” I said.

My dad had wet eyes.

“Daft bugger,” he said. I think he was talking to himself.

Then I was on a trolley being wheeled around the hospital, with Dad on one side and Jenny on the other.

“Are we going to Kenny?” I asked.

“Aye,” Dad said.

“And he’s OK?”

“How do you know he’s OK?”

“We’ve already been in to see him,” said Jenny. “He’s good.” Jenny wasn’t our mum, but I loved her.

And then we got to where Kenny was. It was a ward with five beds in it, and Kenny was in one. He was watching the telly, but with no sound on.

“All right, our Nicky,” Kenny said. “I was worried. But they said they’d get you. I freezed me knackers off. Tina didn’t like it when the water got deep, so she ran back to you. I lost my hat. A doctor said he’d get me a new one. I said Man City not Leeds. Leeds are rubbish. What have they done to your leg?”

“They fixed it up,” I said. “They’ll put a cast on it tomorrow and you can sign it.”

Kenny loved writing his name. He put his own special swirls and loops on all the letters.

“They said it was too late to have the sound on the telly,” Kenny told me. “So I was just watching the pictures. Where’s Tina? Do they not let dogs in the hospital? Is it cos they’ve got germs?”

Kenny didn’t look at me but kept his face towards the small TV screen.

I knew what I was going to say. I’d practised it in the ambulance.

“Tina loved it there, on the moors. She didn’t want to come back to our town. There was a farmer waiting when we got to the road. He said that Tina could go to his farm, and he’d train her to be a sheepdog. The farmer said it was the best life for a dog, with all the walks she wanted and other dogs to play with. He said it was heaven for a dog.”

Kenny’s face was pale in the light from the telly. I could tell that he was imagining Tina there on the farm, herding the sheep and playing with the other sheepdogs.

“Yeah,” Kenny said. “I’m tired.” The remote for the telly was on the bed. He picked it up and turned the screen off. “I’m glad you’re OK, our Nicky.”

“Only thanks to you, Kenny,” I said. “You saved me. You’re a hero.”

It wasn’t until then that I realised he had on his Spiderman pyjamas. Jenny must have brought them for him. Dad would never have thought of it.

They put me in the bed next to Kenny’s. I could reach out and touch him. Dad and Jenny went home. It was dark in the hospital, but nurses still moved about quietly, their shoes making almost no sound. Kenny was asleep, his long arms and his big hands outside the covers. I reached out and took his hand in mine.

“Tell me a story,” Kenny murmured.

And so I told him about Tina on the farm, and the time she saved the sheep from the gytrash, and how the farmer gave her sausages as a reward. Then the Queen came to give Tina a medal, and she got married to one of the Queen’s corgis and spent half the year in Buckingham Palace and half on the farm.